CM club have you recieved your ofsted letter

[dorset]

Hi, just read letter regarding registration under the childcare act 2006 and wanted to know if i was understanding it the way i read it.
It is important to note, that from 1 sept 2008 if one of your conditions refers to children aged five, it will be treated as a condition relating to children in the early years age group, which includes children from birth to the 31 august following a child's fifth birthday. You can only provide care for a maximum of three children in the early years age group and the applicable ratio is one childminder to every three children.
So does this mean a child who is in reception full time stays as an under 5 until 31st august after their fifth birthday? and i assume that if the conditions refers to children aged five bit means how many children you can have under five as on your certificate.
Hope this makes sense.

The educational aspects of EYFS do apply until 31 Aug after 5th birthday. Even though you might expect the child to receive every aspect of EYFS at school we will have to show that our care compliments that at school. According to the current wording of EYFS a child must be counted as a young child through the reception year unless they attend a childminders before and/or after a normal school day. EYFS P.51 B Childminders 2nd bullet point.

This has caused a major outcry because Ofsted initially said this means that a child must be counted as a young child in school holidays and can only be counted as an older child in term-time. Which is obviously ridiculously unmanageable for a childminder! For a time Ofsted were telling people tough, thats what we've got to deal with but now they've implied it will be sorted. As yet, the matter is still unresolved officially, but DCSF have said in emails that it was never their intention to change the current situation re child ratios. In which case one wonders why they didn't use the same wording used in the National Standards!

Apparently its still in the hands of the legal team. Not sure why its taking so long, we were given to understand a revision would be out in July ...

Anyway, if you care for a child joining reception this year, I recommend contacting Ofsted as I did. I wrote and asked for a variation to allow me to care for 4 under fives to include the child in reception year. I had a phone call and (when I insisted on it) also a letter confirming I can continue to care for my mindee even though this is a breach of the current wording of EYFS - its not a breach of my current certificate iyswim.